


barrel house

by deniigiq



Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV), Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Daydreaming, Falling In Love, Getting Together, Just Spit it out already, Love Confessions, M/M, Team Bonding, Team Red, Violence towards machinery, of the everglades specifically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:22:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23562256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniigiq/pseuds/deniigiq
Summary: By 36, Peter was divorced and staring at a load of fuckin’ kids all smiling at him and shit, telling him that he could do this.“You just gotta tell him how youfeel,” Miles said with zero regard for the true depths of Peter’s awkwardness and embarrassment.“I feel like jumping off a cliff,” Peter decided.“Okay, so go jump off a cliff,” Gwen said unhelpfully.(Peter B. needs a little help getting together with Wade. DD shows up to help him find the path of least resistance)
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, Peter Parker/Wade Wilson
Comments: 27
Kudos: 669
Collections: Team Red Mini Bang 2020





	barrel house

**Author's Note:**

> Team Red Mini Bang 2020

He met Wade at 16.

Neither of them knew it.

Their meeting was a slam, a roll, and a screech as Peter hit the ground and then kept on going with the momentum.

He didn’t remember crashing into the shins of a person.

He didn’t remember shoving a hand against them to push himself up before scrambling back to his original trajectory ( _away_ from Shocker).

Wade remembered, though. Of course he did.

Who would forget getting tackled in the street by a kid with a deathwish in a webbed, red spandex suit?

Wade remembered Peter being maybe 110lbs with a head as hard as a helmet and a vicious, if young and warbling battle cry.

Peter told himself that even if he had looked up that day, he wouldn’t have and couldn’t have known that a version of the face looking back at him would be imprinted on his heart in just a matter of years.

He met Wade again at 20.

Wade was Wade then. Before, he’d just been a soldier wandering around on leave, trying to get the best bang for his buck in the Big Apple.

Things had changed.

Well, _some_ things had changed.

Peter still met him by slamming into his shins. Wade had cried out. Peter had cried out. They’d both gone off the edge of the dock like a load of angry geese: flappin’ and angry.

Peter had started to launch himself out of the water with that ever-present deathwish and had found himself drowning suddenly. The world sloshed and glugged as he fought the hand on his head keeping him down under the surface, but nothing had come of it.

Turned out that superstrength was fucking useless when you were 120 pounds and had nothing to ground you.

He fought anyways.

Back then, he’d always fought first and asked questions later.

He barely remembered the feeling of hands on his neck.

He did remember waking up on his side on the rotting wood of the dock and choking water out of his lungs and into his mask. He’d choked again for a moment until someone tore up the bottom of his mask and let the water run out so that he could choke in the night air.

He remembered the thudding of Wade’s huge palm on his back as he’d gasped.

He’d torn himself away from the palm, staggered up and sworn at Wade without recognizing him for a good minute or so.

He’d called Wade things that, in hindsight, were comical.

‘Jerkface’

‘Stupidhead’

‘Asshole’

“The fuck is the matter with you? Would ya do that to your mama, you monumental piece of shit??”

Wade had cackled.

“You my mama now?” he’d asked.

And then Peter had realized who he was.

The city told stories of Deadpool. The city told stories of the man who could not die. Who could not and would not be killed by the end of a knife or the shell of a bullet.

The stories were sickening. They told of a man, dripping with blood, laughing as he dug metal out of his flesh. He was said to swagger, tearing knives out of his own body and shoving them in others’. Always laughing. Always joking.

He’d kill you.

And he’d smile while he did.

And the last thing you’d see would be the horrible, maimed face of the assassin known as Deadpool. Grinning ear to ear with rotten teeth and rotten breath.

Peter had tried to bounce—had tried to get the fuck out of there before it was too late—but he’d already made his first mistake.

He’d made Deadpool laugh. And on the way home, Peter realized that there had been bullet holes all over the end of the dock.

He, however, didn’t have a scratch on him.

Huh.

He met Wade again at 22 and this time, he fell hard.

Wade had just laid the Devil out. Both of them shouting. Both of them screaming. Peter hadn’t seen Red in a while and seeing the guy struggle under Wade’s weight in that moment had reminded him of an angry, beaten dog.

Red threw his body around like a weasel.

He would not be held down by his assailant. He would not go out without punching this fucker in the head and cracking whatever bones he could get his knuckles against. He didn’t care how badly it hurt him in the end, so long as he got through muscle and bone and made Wade regret the day he decided to take on the devil.

Wade told him through gritted teeth that he was going to chill the fuck out and they were going to work together or he was going to put a cap in between Red’s eyes. Red told him that he’d rather die than work for a man like him.

Wade said that they had the same goal.

Red told him to get fucked and die while he was at it.

Wade got frustrated and pulled back. Red wriggled out and got away. Wade watched him go.

_Let_ him go.

The team-up in that moment just wasn’t going to happen.

Peter had tried to sneak away from the scene unnoticed. He didn’t want to get involved. He should have just minded his own business from the start.

But not five steps into the shadows, Peter twisted his head back from over his shoulder and screamed when he met the white eyes of the Merc with the Mouth just inches away from his face.

Wade remembered him.

Peter fought hard to get out of the ensuing grip and shattered Wade’s wrist. Wade didn’t care and wrangled him with his forearm instead, shouting over Peter’s struggling for him to calm down.

“Fuck, kid, I’m not gonna eat you,” he’d snarled.

Peter had panted and then, after a moment, stopped fighting.

“You’re not?” he’d asked.

“What? No. Obviously not,” Wade had sneered. “What the fuck’re them spiders tellin’ you in that web of yours? No. I’m just here lookin’ for a right hand man. You down?”

“Down for what?” Peter had demanded.

Wade let him go and Peter stumbled away a few paces before spinning around and lifting his chin to stare into those white eyes.

Wade tilted his head and said nothing for a long, long moment.

“Down to clown?” he’d asked, dead seriously.

And like.

Fuck.

_Fuck_.

That was the start of the fall.

Wade was scandalized to find out how old Peter was. He called him a fetus. He called him a child. He called himself a cradle robber.

Peter told him that he damn well should do that because he was, in fact, a cradle robber. Then he asked if they were going to fuck or not, and Wade decided to save his chatter for shit that actually benefited him.

In hindsight, 22 was pretty young to be fucking around with a guy in his thirties.

It was fine.

In some respects, Peter had dodged a bullet by going for the gun.

It was _fine_.

By 25, things were easier. More reasonable.

By 26, there was MJ.

By 28, things had cooled off.

And by 30, it was hard to keep them that way.

By 36, Peter was divorced and staring at a load of fuckin’ kids all smiling at him and shit, telling him that he could do this.

“You just gotta tell him how you _feel_ ,” Miles said with zero regard for the true depths of Peter’s awkwardness and embarrassment.

“I feel like jumping off a cliff,” Peter decided.

“Okay, so go jump off a cliff,” Gwen said unhelpfully.

Right.

Fine.

“I’ll be back,” he reported.

The children did not let him leave. The children dragged him back with a thousand aggravatingly sticky hands and insistent sounds and soon enough, Peter was back at square one. Holding his phone under the scrutiny of far too many, far too annoying eyes.

“Look,” he started.

“Grumpy Cat,” Miles countered.

Peter scowled.

“I can’t work under these conditions,” he argued.

The eyes did not let up.

“Have you tried?” Peni asked.

Yes.

Obviously.

It wasn’t called pining for nothin’, kiddo.

He scowled at his phone.

Really, it was just one text. It didn’t even have to be a big thing. It could just be a ‘hey, Wade. You down for shitty food tomorrow?’

Surely that would be plenty. Further discussion could happen over calories. You know, something to look at and pick at and shove in your face when things inevitably got awkward and uncomfortable.

He started typing.

“Don’t forget the part where you want to hold his hand,” Gwen said.

Pft.

Yeah, sure, hon. Whatever you say.

Wade texted back immediately with a ‘!!!’ followed by a ‘when am I NOT???’

Peter felt his lip threaten a smile but didn’t catch it in time to escape the abrupt call out and harassment by the kids, who’d noticed it too fast.

Exhausting.

“All y’all go home already,” he scolded. “I don’t need you here.”

He did not expect to go out that night.

He did not expect to run into the Devil.

He did not expect the Devil to be slamming his head against a concrete block, calling himself stupid.

He extricated the Devil from his concrete block. He escaped being bitten just barely.

He did not escape sitting next to the guy on the ledge of a roof while he laid himself out miserably with an arm thrown over his eyes.

Red was having a hard day. Year. Life.

Peter felt that.

“Maybe I should just give it all up and become a monk,” Red sighed.

Peter considered stealing one of his boots and chucking it down into the city to redirect this conversation.

With monumental effort, he refrained.

“Maybe,” he said.

“Or maybe I ought to just move upstate and become a hermit,” Red groaned without dislodging his arm.

“You know how to start a fire?” Peter asked.

Red considered this through his misery.

“I can cause a fire,” he said.

“I didn’t say ‘cause,’ did I?” Peter said.

There was another pause.

“Maybe I should move down south and drown in a coconut,” Red amended.

“Atta boy,” Peter said.

He leaned back on the heels of his palms. He could feel the grit of the roof through his suit.

“Think I might be fallin’ for Wade,” he said.

“ _Jesus_ ,” Red hissed.

“Tell me about it,” Peter sighed.

“Just—” Red flung himself up. “Why don’t we do this? You and me go down to Florida. We abandon everything that makes us human and just transform into crocodiles. We migrate to the Everglades and eat humans and toads and call it a life for the next twenty years.”

Peter blinked slowly.

“Red,” he said.

“This is a flawless plan,” Daredevil told him with a firm finger. “I will hear not a bit of criticism of this plan.”

“It’s hot in Florida,” Peter said.

He watched Red’s finger droop.

“It’s hot here,” the guy tried to argue anyways.

“Yeah, but this is _New York_ ,” Peter said.

Red threw his arms up and flopped back down onto the ledge.

“Sorry, man,” Peter told him.

Red said nothing.

“Nelson would miss you,” Peter said.

“Just don’t,” Red sighed. “Please.”

Right.

“Do you think I got a shot?” Peter asked the skyline.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Red moaned. “Obviously you’ve got a shot. Everyone knows you’ve got a shot. Wade’s been waiting for _years_ , Spidey.”

Of course.

Of course, he was.

“Why I am still so nervous?” Peter asked his toes.

“Sucks to have feelings,” Red said immediately. “Become a monk with me.”

Peter huffed a laugh.

“You want to know a secret?” he asked.

Red mulled it over.

“I’ll bite,” he relented.

“I’m Jewish,” Peter said. 

“ _Goddamnit_.”

He laughed for real this time.

He went out and caught a few people in the usual business. His heart really wasn’t in it, though. He stepped out from the shadows and let his reputation do most of the work.

Then he went home and crashed.

His tiny apartment felt enormous.

The fridge groaned in the kitchen. The tap dripped occasionally.

He pulled the pillow over his head and sighed.

The next morning he got a text from Red, which was a first. Red and technology didn’t mix. The text was all in lower case.

“new idea,” it said. “become professional superhero iimpersonators travel the country until dead.”

He laughed out loud and shoved the phone under the pillow.

Red’s life was hard. Peter got that.

Maybe it didn’t have to be, though.

Wade had a list of places that he designated as having the ‘finest of fine cuisine.’

Truckie’s was number 7. It was a Hawaiian barbeque joint and Wade went there for Kiki, the owner’s daughter and her big black lab Boscoe first and the food second.

Peter watched him lavish affection on the dog while they waited for their combo.

He spent the time scraping bubbles off the inside walls of his soda cup.

Boscoe snorted.

This was the height of comedy to Wade. Kiki started weeping from mirth at their antics at the register.

“Wade,” Peter said longsufferingly. “We ain’t eating with those hands.”

Wade sat up properly and considered this.

“I _guess_ ,” he said.

Wade had complaints about one of his teammates. He was irritated with this guy’s apparent stick-in-the-mud attitude and was seeking consolation.

Peter gave it to him.

He yammered on about the city’s various Hawaiian barbeque joints and their macaroni recipes, and Peter hummed along.

He explained his completely bullshit opinions on how to mix all of the sodas in the dispenser together in order to achieve the most perfect sugar concoction and Peter couldn’t do much but lean his chin on a palm and try to save face.

With lunch winding down, Peter realized that he hadn’t even started talking about what the whole point of lunch had been.

“Wade,” he said, catching the guy’s arm before more dog-loving commenced. Wade paused and looked back at him with a quirked brow.

“Sup?” he asked.

Oho.

Ohohoho.

AGH.

“Nothing,” Peter said. He pulled his hand back.

“Kid,” Red said, now wrapped around what appeared to be a sacrificial coffee machine. “Just tear off the bandaid.”

“I _can’t_ ,” Peter groaned.

“You can,” Red huffed, making his way over to the edge of the roof. Peter intercepted him and took the coffee maker into his own hands and started to walk it back toward Red’s apartment.

Red jogged over and stole it back.

“Just _do it_ ,” he snapped.

Peter stared at him. Then lunged for the coffee maker. He knocked its bottom and sent it flying over Red’s head, only to catch it before he could.

“Alright, wise guy,” he said. “Master Flirt. Teach me your ways.”

“Hell no,” Red said. “Give it.”

“You’re gonna kill it. No,” Peter said.

“It’s not alive, I can’t kill it,” Red argued. “Give it.”

“Who’s it meant to be?” Peter asked, dancing out of reach.

“No one,” Red growled. “It is just failing at its single designated task.”

“So you’re gonna nail some pedestrian with it?” Peter agitated. “I don’t think so. Who bought it for you?”

“No one,” Red repeated.

“Then I’ll take it,” Peter said.

Red huffed and puffed and hated the idea.

“You and Karen fighting? Or is it you and Foggy?” Peter asked.

“Give it,” Red demanded.

“This looks like a Foggy-purchased device,” Peter said, appraising the coffee maker in question. “Y’all fighting over corn chips again?”

“Pot. Kettle. Give it,” Red said.

“Help me tell Wade and I will,” Peter said.

There was a long pause while Red curled his lip at him and thought hard about this deal.

“Fine,” he finally sniffed. “Tell Wade— _I’ll_ help you tell Wade. Psh. Fine. It’s nothin’. Gimme that.”

Peter handed over the sacrificial lamb and did not miss how Red cuddled the thing protectively to his chest this time.

Peter should have known better than to make a deal with the devil.

The devil had no shame. Or skin in the game.

The devil also was his own boss and ergo decided his working hours. He, in full court-glory, flounced right on into _The Bugle_ ’s offices and demanded to know where Peter B. Parker’s desk was located. Then he proceeded to critique every elevator and non-ADA approved object in the place before an exasperated and terrified secretary from HR called Peter out of the digital media lab.

“ _Matthew_ ,” Peter hissed, once he had ushered Red safely out of sight of the others. “You’re supposed to be helping. This is not helping.”

“This is helping,” Red said. “I am helping. Wade is home right now.”

“And we are not,” Peter reminded him. “We have real jobs with real purposes in life.”

Red said nothing. Peter could feel the judgment.

“Listen,” he said.

“No choice,” Red countered.

“ _Listen_ ,” Peter repeated forcefully. “Do not come to my place of work ever again, okay? Come on, let’s go.”

Red wasn’t bothered. And of course, he wouldn’t be.

Shame wasn’t in his wheelhouse.

Red’s idea of ‘helping’ was letting Peter guide him out of the building and then seizing his elbow and half-dragging him to the Upper West Side.

Peter’s protests fell upon ears that weren’t deaf, just uninterested.

Grabbing onto a stop sign was the only thing that saved him from imminent embarrassment.

Red set his fingers into the fabric of Peter’s jacket and pulled.

“Let’s be reasonable,” Peter said.

“I’m _helping_ ,” Red told him.

“You’re helping too much. We need boundaries,” Peter said.

Red pulled harder. Peter hugged the pole tighter.

“Hate boundaries,” Red said, digging his fingers into the meat of Peter’s arm.

“I can see that,” Peter growled at him.

“I can’t. Move. We have confessions to make. I have machines to destroy,” Red insisted.

Peter scowled.

“This isn’t the right atmosphere,” he snapped.

“There will never be a right atmosphere for you two idiots,” Red said.

“You don’t know that,” Peter said.

Red abandoned his arm and crossed his own across his chest. He looked exactly two seconds away from stamping a foot.

Peter felt himself waver but caught himself.

“Romance, Red,” he said. “Help me do romance.”

Red rolled his whole head instead of his eyes. He kept his face heavenward and breathed in deep.

Peter waited for him to finish communing. Eventually he brought down his face.

“I hate you both,” he announced.

“Thanks, babe, I hate you too,” Peter said winningly.

Red made a pained sound.

“Alright, fuck it. You stay here and look stupid,” he said. “ _I’ll_ be right back.”

Oh god.

“I take it back,” Peter said.

“No, no, this is what you wanted,” Red argued. “I’m _helping_.”

“Please stop then,” Peter said. “You can destroy the symbol of your partnership. I won’t stop you. I’ll figure something else out. Alternatively, we can move to Florida. I love Florida.”

“I said, you stay here,” Red maintained. “I will destroy my personal property and fulfill my dreams on my own time.”

He spun around and strutted off, cane tapping away, like Peter was a dog that refused to be petted. Peter became aware that he was garnering looks for clinging to the stop sign. He quickly removed himself and smoothed out his clothes. Cleared his throat.

Definitely didn’t chase after the blind man.

Nope.

Didn’t do that.

He caught his blind guy just before his knuckles hit Wade’s door for the second time. Manhandling him took more work than expected because Red was kind of a beefcake under those frumpy clothes.

He removed Red to a nearby alcove and dumped him out that window onto a fire-escape before quickly joining him.

Red, it seemed, had found his determination alongside a good helping of spite on the way up the stairs.

He made for the window.

Peter lunged for his waist. Red predicted it and leapt up onto the sill. Peter went for his knees instead and underestimated how much room they had out on the fire-escape when he yanked them both back right into the railing. He kept one arm locked around Matt’s waist and the other clinging to the railing to keep them from falling.

The sound of a window opening greeted him.

Wade leaned out of it to stare at the both of them.

Red tapped his foot irritably next to Peter on Wade’s couch. Peter could practically feel the angry energy he was putting out.

He put a pillow between them.

Red nabbed it and tried to suffocate him with it.

“Been ages, Redthew,” Wade noted, watching the war escalate with zero intention to interfere.

Red was heavy, Christ.

Peter locked arms around his waist and twisted hard so that he fell on the floor. He chucked the pillow after him. Red caught it and lobbed it squarely right back into Peter’s lap. He stood up and dusted himself off.

“And so it shall be more,” he told Wade stiffly. “You. Talk to him,” he jabbed a finger at Peter. “I have machinery to destroy.”

Wade hummed knowingly.

“Coffee machine?” he asked.

Red paused.

“How did you know?” he asked.

“Nelson told me.”

Red went stiff.

“He _what_?” he asked.

Wade settled back in his chair and shrugged.

“What were you talking to him for?” Red demanded.

“Stuff and things,” Wade said.

“Oh. Excellent. Never do it again,” Red decided.

Wade hummed.

“Killing the messenger will not make your love stronger, Redthew,” he said. “You can just tell your life-long buddy ol’ pal that you want to kiss him instead of taking it out on the communal kitchenware.”

Red could not possibly go stiffer.

“I don’t want to kiss him, I want to go become one with the Everglades,” he said.

Wade tossed a casual arm over the back of his chair.

“I _don’t_ ,” Red said. “I am straight, thanks.”

“Kay,” Wade said. “Anyways, Pete, what’s got you out this way in the middle of the afternoon? You chasin’ this lug? Havin’ a field trip?”

Uhhhh.

“I’m _straight_ ,” Red insisted.

Peter felt a little sweaty all of the sudden.

“We know, hon. You’re doing a great job showing us that,” Wade told Red comfortingly.

Red set his chin.

“When I attain alligator form, I will eat you _first_ ,” he decided. “Good bye.”

“Byeeee,” Wade crooned at his furious back.

The door slammed.

Wade laughed and beamed at Peter.

“Guy’s a barrel of laughs,” he said. “What’s up, Pete? You here for the day or back to the office?”

Peter shivered.

And so.

The awkwardness sets in.

He took a deep breath.

It was now or never.

He’d met Wade when he was 16 and rolling right across asphalt and broken glass.

He’d met Wade at 20. Had been held underwater by him to escape a rain of bullets he hadn’t even known were coming.

He’d fallen at 22 and so now it was just stupid and silly to sit across from him and spew everything out as if Wade didn’t already know his soul like the back of his gnarled, scarred fingers.

Wade laughed.

God, he laughed.

Peter felt his face go hot and his brain went fuzzy and his eyesight seemed to blur.

And then Wade wasn’t laughing. He was saying something and wrapping an arm over Peter’s shoulders, pressing closer, despite Peter pushing him away.

“None of that, honey,” Wade murmured, gathering Peter’s shoulders up anyways. He let Peter drop his forehead against his trap.

“Sorry,” Peter mumbled into it and his freezing cold fingers. “I’m sorry. I’ll stop. I’ll just—forget it ever happened.”

Wade pulled back and smeared a thumb under his eye.

“You’re so dramatic,” he cooed. “You and Red—off plannin’ to hike down to Flamingo land just ‘cause of a few little feelings.”

They weren’t little, Wade.

“A couple l’il, bitty feelings,” Wade carried on, squishing Peter’s cheeks in his hand.

Peter yanked his face out of the grip.

“Fuck off, man,” he sighed.

“Gimme a kiss.”

“Hell no.”

“Just a kiss, Petey-pete. You’re so cute.”

Ugh.

Fine.

One kiss.

“Thank you,” Wade smirked.

“Are you happy now?” Peter asked.

Red’s Everglades plan had actually never sounded better all of the sudden.

Wade beamed.

“I was always happy,” he said. “But now I’m elated.”

Peter snorted.

“Big word,” he said.

“Huge word,” Wade agreed. “Was takin’ up real estate in this pea-brain.”

“Big talk, too” Peter pointed out.

“Not big,” Wade hummed. “Just honest. You’ve done it now, princess. You set foot in this wood. Are you up for the challenge?”

Was he up for the challenge?

Psh.

He was Spiderman.

He wasn’t afraid of no forest.

“We’ll see about that, kid,” Wade said. “And as happy as I am that you’re up for it, we actually have another, more pressing matter at hand.”

Did they now?

“Yeah,” Wade said with determination in his eyes. “We got a coffee pot to rescue.”

\------------

**Author's Note:**

> The folks on discord organized this amazing Team Red Mini Bang and this is mine **@sucrosesorcery** (tumblr)'s contribution. Their art is A M A Z I N G so please go check them out here: **https://sucrosesorcery.tumblr.com/**


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